Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use tack in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Tack means a small nail with a flat head. Example: “The laminate adhesive has very aggressive tack and is hard to move once in place.”

Examples of tack by meaning

nounA direction or course of action, especially a new one; a method or approach to solving a problem.

  • Griffith’s paper is on the same tack now: an army rotten with venereal disease: overseas or halfseasover empire.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[V]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC
  • ‘I know it all right,’ Big Bil snarled, ‘but knowing and proving are two different tacks.’1960, J. E. Macdonnell, Don't Gimme the Ships, Melbourne: Horwitz Publications, page 124
  • I thought that my refusing Barnard would alienate Botha, and decided that such a tack was too risky.1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 637

nounThe stickiness of a compound, related to its cohesive and adhesive properties.

  • The laminate adhesive has very aggressive tack and is hard to move once in place.

nounFood generally; fare, especially of the hard bread or breadlike kind.

  • But if a woman's got nothing but her fair fame to feed on, why, it's thin tack, and a donkey would die of it!1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC

verbTo nail (something) with a tack (small nail with a flat head).

  • At one end of it a colored poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall.1949 June 8, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC, Part I, Chapter I

verbTo add something as an extra item.

  • to tack (something) onto (something)
  • In short, they tend to present Indian English as nothing more than "standard" English with a select collection of lexical peculiarities tacked on, as it were, many of which would be regarded as "errors" by prescriptivist language scholars.2012, James Lambert, “Beyond Hobson-Jobson: A new lexicography for Indian English”, in World Englishes, page 312

nounA peculiar flavour or taint.

  • a musty tack

More sentences with tack

  • I found a tack and pegged your picture to the bulletin board.From the entry peg
  • We're on starboard tack, so the other boat has to give way.From the entry starboard
  • We lost several hours having to tack into a foul wind just off the coast.From the entry foul wind
  • Those extra nights tacked onto his hotel stay will cost him dear.From the entry cost dear
  • It will cost him dear to tack additional nights onto his hotel stay.From the entry cost dear
  • I don't care what he thinks! He can just sit on a tack!From the entry sit on a tack
  • This new tack outholds the older one.From the entry outhold
  • "Go sit on a tack!" she said, angrily.From the entry sit on a tack
  • Each can carry up to 25% of its weight in combined tack, supplies, and rider.2023, C. B. Chastain, Concise Textbook of Large Animal Handling: A Practical Handbook, pages 4-60. From the entry mammoth
  • If we missed stays and failed to tack we would sag off to leeward, onto the sandbank.2015, Ian Nicolson, The Ian Nicolson Trilogy, →ISBN. From the entry sag off
  • Anna decided not to press that subject and forestayed her mind to change tack.2008, Alfred Fox, Anna's Story: Basset Mead. From the entry forestay
  • Lattice QCD explores the particle realm by taking a different tack.2004 September 7, Peter Weiss, “Starting from Square One”, in Science News, volume 166, number 6, →DOI, pages 90–1. From the entry gluon
  • When Mum died at ninety she was still as sharp as a tack.1999, Tina Koch et al., Still Me, Wakefield Press, page 148. From the entry sharp as a tack
  • We're gonna stop playing games with these Arabs and get down to brass tacks!1979, Stephen King, The Dead Zone, London: Futura Publications, published 1987, →ISBN, page 337. From the entry get down to brass tacks
  • They'll break from the gate in full tack with jockeys riding catchweight in silks.1976 December 3, “Oldtimers race is well received”, in El Paso Herald-Post. From the entry catchweight
  • Turns of shock cord, securing tack to centre of forebeam, stretch as the wind increases.1975, Bob Ross, Introduction to Yacht Racing, page 111. From the entry forebeam
  • Tack the work pieces with one spot and check for proper relative position of pieces.1966, George L. Ritchie, Electronics Construction Techniques, page 33. From the entry respot
  • Coil spring setters install springs after webbers have tacked the webbing on which the springs rest.1944, Occupational Briefs on America's Major Job Fields, page 59. From the entry webber
  • That's all the facts when you come to brass tacks: Birth, and copulation, and death.[1932, T[homas] S[tearns] Eliot, “[Unfinished Poems.] Sweeney Agonistes: Fragment of an Agon.”, in Collected Poems 1909–1935, London…. From the entry get down to brass tacks
  • Three rolled sheets are clamped together and to a form and are then tack welded into place.1923 June, “Fabricating Storage Tanks by Oxy-Acetylene Welding”, in Acetylene Journal. From the entry tack weld
  • No longer do we tack and tack obediently to the demand of the Valkyries.1922, Holbrook Jackson, “Ships and the Sea”, in Occasions, page 128. From the entry urge
  • The paleographers regard this passage as tacked on by a later scribe.1915 December (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Androcles and the Lion. Preface on the Prospects of Christianity.”, in Androcles and…. From the entry paleographer
  • One of them may, as we have seen, be tacked on to the frontlet.1907, Percy Dearmer, “Chapter II. The Holy Table and its Furniture”, in The Parson’s Handbook […], 6th edition, Henry Frowde; London…. From the entry undercloth
  • Horses will resent tacking up and might have violent reactions similar to those seen on a 'cold back' horse.2018, Frances M. D. Henson, Equine Neck and Back Pathology: Diagnosis and Treatment, page 226. From the entry cold back
  • 'Tell me,' she went on tiredly trying another tack.2014 -, Stan Mason, Revengement, →ISBN. From the entry on-side
  • Bags are no sooner unpacked in the prime ministerial suite than it's down to tin tacks: to implementation.2013 October 25, Katharine Murphy, “Andrew Bolt v Tony Abbott: all very amiable – up to a point”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The…. From the entry what say you
  • If he is able to keep clear only by making an unseamanlike manoeuvre, then your tack was too close.2013, Bryan Willis, The Rules in Practice 2013-2016. From the entry unseamanlike
  • A notation hadn't been added to his chart in regards to his fangdom and she wasn't about to tack it on.2013, Celia Kyle, Poking the Vamp, unnumbered page. From the entry fangdom
  • This means, naturally, that a prosecutor anxious about tacking too close to the wind will disclose a favorable piece of evidence.2004, James R. Acker, David C. Brody, Criminal Procedure: A Contemporary Perspective, page 422. From the entry close to the wind
  • Those rinky-dinks tacked an extra sixteen dollars on my bill.1996, Al Stump, “Extra Innings”, in Cobb: A Biography, Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, Workman Publishing Company…. From the entry rinky-dink
  • Behind the stable doors, where competitors frenziedly shine tack and polish hooves, Donna McNulty busies herself with her horse, Abecedarian.1990 August 27, Cynthia B. Hanson, “HORSE PLAY”, in The Christian Science Monitor, archived from the original on 14 Jan 2025. From the entry abecedarian

Meaning of tack

  1. noun A small nail with a flat head.
  2. noun A thumbtack.
  3. noun A loose seam used to temporarily fasten pieces of cloth.

Full definition of tack

Questions about tack in a sentence

How do you use tack in a sentence?
Tack is used as a noun and verb. For example: “The laminate adhesive has very aggressive tack and is hard to move once in place.”
What is a short sentence with tack?
“a musty tack”
What does tack mean?
Tack means a small nail with a flat head.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tack (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use tack in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/tack. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.